Juan Mata's two goals in two midfield starts for Chelsea suggest he is already repaying Roman Abramovich's £23.5m investment in him, unlike another Spain international who cost more than twice as much.

He has also saved Chelsea a potential headache for more than football reasons after they chose not to conclude their interest in Palermo's Javier Pastore. The Argentina international's agent, Marcelo Simonian, is said to have visited London for talks with Chelsea on 29 July after Pastore's club had described his transfer to Stamford Bridge as "very likely".

But something changed after that date and Paris Saint-Germain – now belonging to Qatar's sovereign-wealth fund – moved in, paying €43m (£37.3m) for the forward. A case before the Sicilian courts gives us an indication of what turned Chelsea off.

In the case Palermo will claim that, when Pastore was still with Argentina's Atlético Huracán, they ceded a portion of his economic rights to Simonian's Dodici Sports Management. Then, Palermo will say, when he joined them a deal was agreed whereby Dodici would receive a portion of any future transfer fee. This is perhaps up to half of the total fee due – if so, more than £18.5m.

Now the Sicilian courts are considering a complaint from Palermo alleging Simonian is "extorting" the money from them. They claim Simonian told Pastore that he should not sign for PSG unless Palermo agreed to pay over his half of the fee. Simonian denies that charge, claiming also he owned all of Pastore's "economic rights" until he sold half to Palermo and is therefore due half the fee from PSG.

Palermo are believed to have said they will pay no more than ¤12.5m (£10.8m). With Mata delivering, Chelsea look wise to have avoided being dragged into a messy legal wrangle that would have exposed details of their transfer business in public.

Blatter denies Platini deal

Sepp Blatter was moved to reach for his Twitter account on Wednesday to deny reports of a deal between him and Michel Platini for the Uefa president to take over the top job at Fifa before Blatter's term ends in 2015. "The existence of a reported 'deal' between me and Michel Platini for the presidency is pure nonsense," he tweeted. "The suggestion that I intend to stop my four‑year mandate before its end is simply ridiculous."

Not so ridiculous that the top people in club football do not believe it to be a fait accompli. At the European Club Association annual congress last week Platini's supposed deal with Blatter – in which Europe's 53 votes would go to Blatter in return for him to hand over the baton to the Frenchman in mid-term – was a frequent topic of conversation.

There would, of course, be several obstacles to any handover, such as the other 155 Fifa nations probably objecting to a backroom deal between two Europeans without an election taking place, and the risk that Blatter would not honour the terms of a non-binding agreement. In any case the switch would not be for many months or years. That is why the talk never really justified much credence, until now. Blatter's intervention overin the story is not so much because an article has appeared about the supposed deal, rather that so many senior people in the club game believe it to be true.

Statistics clanger

The government supports 30 sports financially and, according to Sport England's Active People survey for the 12 months to April this year, football is among the 21 whose participation statistics have declined since October 2008. In fact, in an environment where participation has collapsed by more than 40% in one of the government-funded sports, football fares fairly well in having lost 0.47% of its total players. Still, this outcome – halfway through a £25.6m four-year Sport England investment into the Football Association – certainly clangs against old government promises that hosting the Olympic Games would "help at least 2m more people in England be more active by 2012". So when the Football Association launches its Just Play scheme this week with airy claims of getting "150,000 new participants playing the game for at least 30 minutes a week by September 2013", it is hard not to doubt those promises.

Perfect irony for City

Manchester City's decision to look for a chief executive for whom football experience will be secondary to an ability to deliver infrastructure projects raises an intriguing prospect. Keith Edelman spent seven years as Arsenal's managing director, working first on the £12m training ground and then on the £400m Emirates Stadium development. Two years after the stadium opened, Edelmanthe former retail, planning and finance executive was made redundant as Arsenal sought instead someone from a sporting background, in the shape of Ivan Gazidis. City say no names have yet been considered, since they are only days into their recruitment process. But as Arsenal fear their position as one of England's "big four" being supplanted by the Eastlands club, it would be ironic if Edelman were to help push City into their next phase.